Boulder County hiker thankful for rescuers and ham radio operators: 'I was lucky'

Boulder resident Bill Eberle has been a licensed ham radio operator since his teen years and says he never goes on a hike into the Colorado wilderness without his portable radio.

On Monday, Eberle's penchant for the somewhat dated technology paid off in a big way for an injured hiker, as he worked with two other ham radio operators to direct rescuers to the man's location in a part of western Boulder County where cellphone service remains nonexistent.

Broomfield resident Michael Schuett was hiking with his fiancee, Mary Gruda, just after noon Monday near the Fourth of July Campground, west of Nederland, when he lost his footing while crossing a creek and fell.

"I fell forward onto a boulder and cracked my head open," Schuett, 67, said Tuesday afternoon as he sat in his home with a mild concussion and 11 stitches in his forehead. "I totally lost consciousness. I was lying face down in the water."

Fortunately, there were many Samaritans on the trail Monday, including one man — the couple only knows him as Vincenzo — who helped pull Schuett from the water. Another man came along and, with Vincenzo, helped move Schuett off the trail and get him comfortable while also holding a wet rag to his head to stop the bleeding.

Two paramedics who were leading an overnight camping trip for a youth group also came upon the scene. They laid Schuett down, elevated his feet and performed cognitive testing to see how severe an injury he sustained.

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Shortly thereafter, Eberle and his wife, Mary, walked up the trail.

"We were coming up the trail and people were coming down and they said, 'Hey, can you get any bars on your cellphone?'" Eberle said, adding he knew coverage was exceptionally weak in the area.

Once he saw Schuett, Eberle jumped on his portable ham radio and put out the call.

"You basically say what your call sign is and what your situation is and someone will come back to you," said Eberle, who for the past 14 years has been an amateur radio operator going by AB0MY. "I said, 'I need medical assistance for a hiker in Indian Peaks.' I put out the call and he came back in 2 seconds."

The "he" in this case is Colorado Springs-area ham radio operator Ryan Frederick. Tapping into the Colorado Connection Repeaters, a series of repeater devices located on key mountaintops that pick up and amplify the weaker signals of individual ham radios across the state, Eberle's message was broadcast from nearby Mount Thorodin clear to Colorado Springs, where Frederick received it and called the Boulder County Sheriff's Office to report the emergency.

From there, dispatchers called on Scott Whitehead, a radio specialist for the Sheriff's Office and 30-year volunteer for the Rocky Mountain Rescue Group, to get in touch with Eberle and coordinate rescue efforts.

"I was able to then ask key questions about where they were on the trail," Whitehead said, "and get some of the information that we want as first responders — such as is the patient conscious or unconscious — so that we make sure we send the right medical equipment and personnel into the field."

Eventually, crews from Nederland Fire Rescue reached the scene and were joined by Rocky Mountain Rescue volunteers who helped Schuett walk back to the trailhead. An ambulance followed the couple down to Boulder, and Gruda drove Schuett to an emergency room, where he received a CAT scan and stitches before being sent home on orders to get at least three days of bed rest.

"I was lucky," Schuett said. "When I fell flat on my forehead and rolled into the water, I was totally unconscious. All the help people gave was phenomenal."

He gave special thanks to the ham radio operators, noting that it could have been a while until help came without them.

Whitehead said he first studied to get his ham radio license in 1982.

"I had been doing a lot of rock climbing and wanted a way to communicate out of the backcountry in case I got in trouble."

The ham radio "probably saved at least 30 minutes to an hour to getting (Schuett) help," Whitehead said. "Ham radio still fills a gap in communications that cellphones can't provide."

Eberle said that in all his years of carrying a radio on hikes, Monday was the first time he used it in an emergency. It will continue to be a vital part of his hiking gear.

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